It's part of Data's plan to use the tractor beam (not phasers) against the Stargazer. Important for the plan then not moot at all.

As far as we know, the use of the tractor beam is only important to Picard's not-being-killed in the process. The extent to which the interception ITSELF depends on the tractor beam is unknown.

As far as TNG goes, they've been pretty consistent on data points to have warp the same speed regardless where they were unless there was something grabbing them.

Only because there are so few actual datapoints. Plus, I'm not totally prepared to separate TNG from the rest of Trek canon for this specific purpose since even the "recalibrated" warp scale isn't necessarily canon; for all we know, Federation races have been using the same scale since humans were still dabbling in chemical rocketry.

If it was TOS Warp 9 near a star, it could be as slow as 5c which is about 33s for light to travel one way from Ferengi to Stargazer so 1 minute for a active pulse and 30 seconds for only passive data. Still way too long for Picard's sensor bearing request as he got it almost instantly.

And yet if Stargazer were passively reading the Ferengi's sensor beam, jumping into warp nine would have meant arriving at the Ferengi's position before the scanner beam would have returned tot hem.

Whoa there. Yes you can see the end but at FTL you won't have a clue as to where it goes until you actually run into it.

Yes you do. In this case the trail is like a giant cosmic arrow pointing the direction that the other ship went, trailing behind it by a short distance (a distance you can calculate if you know what his warp factor is, and you probably can). All that means is you cannot SEE the target ahead of you, but with the telltales in his warp trail you can calculate his position and zero in on that until he becomes visible.

For an experiment, in an open area with very loud music or noise, put a blindfold on and wear sound-blocking earplugs and have a friend stand in front of you with a small battery powered fan. Have friend move around the room while aiming the fan at you while you try and catch them. Even though you can feel the air from the fan, you can't tell how far away it is.

False analogy. It's really like trying to find a ship at sea by following its wake. You don't have to physically encounter the wake in order to follow it (although that would work too) you can whip out a pair of binoculars and look ahead to a point where you can no longer see the wake; even if you can't see the ship itself, you can figure out where it is based on that.

If it was delayed by 4 seconds, Riker's orders would've been too late...

I didn't say it was "delayed" by 4 seconds. I've said that that the maneuver took about 4 seconds but that Enterprise's viewscreen only animated the last three-quarters of a second as the Stargazer dropped out of warp. That means that Enterprise saw the warp streaks as Stargazer decelerated, by which time the ship had already been at warp for several seconds; Riker's orders would be just in time to coincide with Stargazer's actual stoppage.

Which points to not LS sensors in order to see those warp streaks.

The warp streaks that indicate a starship that is dropping OUT of warp. Those are seen using conventional sensors (e.g. cameras).

For locking on tractor beams. Data's plan did not include phasers or other weapons.

Irrelevant; he doesn't actively rule them out either.

We're frequently shown ships warping by at FTL...

Irrelevant; the camera's position is usually moving with respect to the ship in question (star streaks in the background). The few times it isn't, it can be INFERRED to be since the moving starship isn't moving anywhere NEAR lightspeed relative to the camera.

We're talking about scenes where a relatively stationary target witnesses a starship make the sudden transition from FTL to sublight speed and vice-versa. In every single case, we see the distinct warp flash -- indicative of a ship crossing the light barrier -- following by the streaky image of a hugely accelerated but still sublight vessel.

Perfect image to illustrate my point. Whatever the perspective of the camera in this shot, it is NOT being overflown at FTL speeds; the Enterprise AND the camera are both at FTL; the camera is simply moving towards Khitomer slightly slower than Enterprise is.

Just because they have a warp streak doesn't mean they are accelerating in or out of warp.

99% of the time, it DOES. What's more interesting is that the very few times that it doesn't involves a starship that is positively HAULING ASS to get some place before a plot-driven deadline.

The way you described it: "He had already taken a sensor bearing on the Ferengi ship and fed a targeting solution ahead of time."

That lock-on prior to the sudden Warp 9 move would've broken the lock.

Not if Vigo let the locking mechanism float, the way Riker advised Sito, in which case Stargazer's sensors would have simply remained fixed on the acceleration-distorted image of the Ferengi vessel until it again resolved itself into a clear target at the stopping point.

You don't mention a need to re-acquire the target as "Lower Decks" indicates.

That's because such a need does not exist. Stargazer had already worked out the Ferengi ship's exact position before going to warp, and I imagine was pleasantly surprised to find it still IN that position when it stopped.

Which neither one disputes their interpretations. The only likely things that happened as supported by the dialogue is that the Ferengi saw both ships and fired at the wrong target.

But WHEN and WHY is never specified. The variables here:
1 - Did they fire before or AFTER Stargazer did?
2 - Was it confusion of the second target reappearing, or the confusion caused by the dozens of consoles exploding all over their bridge?

Why didn't Tuvok fire phasers? We've seen many times the brave helmsman or some other guy run up to the helm to get the ship "out of there". But when have we seen someone firing weapons without authorization to save the ship?

You're suggesting that the weapons officer of a Ferengi pirate vessel would not have had authorization to fire on the Stargazer? In the middle of a firefight? After they had ALREADY fired on them three different times?

If they were trained like "The Lower Decks"...

Do you honestly think the weapons officers on Ferengi pirate vessels are trained to the same standards and rules of engagement as Starfleet junior officers?

That's just being silly. You have LS sensors and you're traveling FTL chasing an FTL ship. You cannot see "where it ends".

Special relativity, dude: a photon always travels at light speed in all reference frames. No matter how fast you're moving relative to the other ship, if you're a light second away, his image ALWAYS reaches you after one second.

The light trail exists as a form of extreme motion blur; the ship appears to be "stretched" along its direction of travel because it travels a much greater distance between the emission of any two photons; if it travels at the speed of light, it appears to occupy those two positions simultaneously, and if it's much faster than light it appears to occupy MANY positions at once (those positions are so close together that they appear to be a single elongated image, hence it is a "trail" and not a Picard-maneuver double image).

Warp drive allows the SHIP to travel faster than light, but it doesn't affect the speed of light itself. So in this case it's not a question of whether or not the lightspeed delay still applies over relative distances or relative speeds, it's literally a question of which thing -- the photon or the ship that emitted it -- will arrive at its destination first.

More like collide with the ship you're chasing. Again, you're flying so fast that you can't see what is in front of your nose

Yes you can. Photons from those objects in front of you are still reaching you at the speed of light. It's simply a question of whether or not the object that emitted them will hit you before the photons do. If you're chasing a ship moving at FTL speed, the answer is a categorical no.

If Picard gave them no breathing room, they would've been dead and unable to respond.

Yes. Just not INSTANTLY, as in Star Trek it always takes a few seconds for the doomed ship to roll over and ripple out its big dramatic "Death rattle" of explosions.

Having a 10 foot hole in the bridge as you're getting destroyed is as you'd say, "a distinction without a difference".

I'd say it makes a pretty huge difference to the weapons officer who is trying to accurately direct a volley of photon torpedoes with all this shit going on around him.

As pointed out earlier, if they have enough time to respond, they'd target the correct ship and the Stargazer would've been destroyed.

Which is hugely begging the question. It takes half a second to press a button on a console to fire a spread of torpedoes; it takes quite a bit longer to switch your scanner beam onto a second target, lock your weapons onto it and THEN fire a spread of torpedoes.

Just because you have enough time to press a button does NOT mean you have enough time to run to your tactical officer and have a serious discussion about which of those two targets you should fire your torpedoes at.

Controlling Picard to kill other Starfleet officers isn't equivalent to the same hurt.

It is if you count Wesley and Beverly aboard the crew, but I doubt Bok would have been aware of this. I think he merely assumed Picard would be as attached to his crew as Bok was to his son and acted accordingly. He would have been wrong, but it wouldn't be the first time (or the last).

Oh that's simple. The LS sensors on the ship being chased wouldn't be able to get a passive reflection from the chasing ships

Incorrect.

The answer is: their relative velocity is ZERO, thus the time delay is the same in both directions and both ships have clear images of one another, despite the fact that both of them are going at warp speed.

This is because in SR there's no such thing as a "universal reference frame" and the speed of light is always the same from all possible perspectives (that's what causes time dilation: the moving observer has his clock accelerated with respect to the stationary one so that his measurement of C remains unchanged).

As I said above, the only weird part is that a ship can arrive at a destination before the photons it emitted arrives there (which is what happens in the Picard Maneuver). That same trick doesn't really work in reverse; if you go to warp AWAY from someone, they'll see you leaving, they'll see where you're going, and they'll see your streaky image flying off all the way to your destination. They will, of course, not see you arrive until a long time after you get there, which leaves open the possibility that you can warp over to a distant location and them warp back without them realizing you went anywhere at all. (This is basically what Hathaway did in "Peak Performance"; I'm beginning to think that maybe those Constellation-types are abnormally fast for starships).